


A Ninja's Guide to Making Friends and Meeting New People

by coxcomb



Category: Naruto
Genre: Developing Relationship, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 08:23:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8704906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coxcomb/pseuds/coxcomb
Summary: “Well, you know how it is. A shinobi’s work is never over,” Kakashi replies casually. He frowns a little at the end of the sentence though, and Yamato wonders if all three of them have suddenly started to contemplate the inevitability of death or if it’s just him. Then Yamato wonders if he’s weird.
**
Yamato attends a party and more or less loses control over his life. Not necessarily in that order. Alternatively, Yamato is bad at making friends, Iruka is good at making friends, and they sort of meet each other in the middle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Emily.... My best Nardo pal... Originally written in 2015, edited and uploaded more than a year later. When does this fic take place in the canon timeline? I do not know. Will there be some kind of romantic relationship between any of the characters? I do not know. What am I doing with my life? I do not know. Enjoy!

Iruka is so widely loved throughout the village because he has been _there_ for so much of them at such important moments. Everyone is going to his party. It isn’t even a question among them, when Naruto calls out to Ino across a hallway as her team walks by, when he reminds Kiba of something they did together when they were children during their academy days. 

Naruto just assumes that he will see Yamato on Saturday, and it feels awkward to say, “Actually, I won’t be going.” 

“You’re not going to Iruka-sensei’s birthday party?” Naruto asks, bewildered and accusing. Yamato smiles a little, regretfully. 

“I’m not a party person,” he begins, skirting around the issue, but he eventually adds, “I don’t know Iruka that well, after all.”

Naruto gets this look of puzzlement on his face and Yamato knows that he’s trying to figure it out, how two people who are such important parts of his life can have existed all this time without their lives overlapping. 

“You should wish him happy birthday for me,” Yamato says after a prolonged silence. He shuffles the papers he’s holding and start to move away.

“No, wait!” Naruto cries, grabbing onto Yamato’s elbow and frowning at him. “You should come anyway. Practically the whole village will be there.”

“I feel it would be – impolite, in a way,” Yamato says, frowning. “It would be taking advantage of his kindness.” 

Naruto shakes his head adamantly. “No, Iruka won’t mind!”

Yamato opens his mouth to argue but the conversation is interrupted by someone swooping down and capturing Naruto in a chokehold. 

“Iruka won’t mind what, Naruto?” Iruka asks sweetly, clearly suspecting Naruto of some kind of mischief. Naruto squirms in his grasp, but Iruka plants his feet and digs his knuckles into Naruto’s skull – gently.

“You should let Yamato come to your birthday party,” Naruto says, his voice muffled against Iruka’s vest. Iruka drops his hold on Naruto abruptly, looking up at Yamato in surprise. 

“Of course you can come to my birthday party,” Iruka says, looking slightly abashed as he straightens out his vest. “Everyone’s invited.”

Yamato’s cheeks colour slightly and he scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “Ah, it wasn’t that I was worried that I was invited, Iruka-san,” he says, ducking his head slightly. “I was telling Naruto” – he sends the boy a pointed glance – “that I didn’t feel that we knew each other well enough for me to… trespass on your celebration.” 

Iruka blinks and starts waving his hands dismissively. He seems – distressed by what Yamato has said. “Oh, Yamato-san, you wouldn’t be trespassing,” he says, eyes wide. Naruto is looking between rapidly, and perhaps realizing for the first time exactly how awkward his mentor figures are. “I mean, it seems like half of Konoha is going to be coming, anyway, and I wouldn’t flatter myself to think I had that many friends,” he chuckles awkwardly. “And – since that’s the case – it almost seems sad to think that you wouldn’t come and – and be with everyone else.” 

Yamato’s cheeks turned even redder. “It wouldn’t be sad,” he said, and now he’s waving his hands too. “I was planning to catch up on some mission reports – it’s not like I would be… wallowing, or anything. I wasn’t planning on spending Saturday thinking about how much I wished I was at the party…”

Iruka makes a slightly strangled noise. “No! Of course not! I didn’t mean to imply that! I just meant – well – wouldn’t you rather be at a party than doing work on the weekend?” 

“Well,” Yamato says, looking down and shuffling his feet. By this point, both men are slightly red from embarrassment and both feel like they’ve put their foot in their mouth. Naruto is finding the conversation bizarrely exhausting. “I mean, I’m not much of a party person,” Yamato says, subdued. 

Iruka laughs a little, still awkward. “Well, I guess not many shinobi are,” he says, and Yamato actually glances up at that, meets his eye, and they share a smile. 

Of course, in that weirdly tense moment where it seems like the tides are finally going to turn, someone has to interrupt by letting off a small explosion somewhere down the hall. 

Yamato, Iruka, and Naruto all jump, startled, hands twitching toward their weapons even as someone yells out, “Sorry, just a little accident, no need to get worked up about it!” There’s already three ANBU members gathering around the source of the noise, so the off-duty ninjas allow themselves to relax.

But the mood has been broken, and Yamato squares his shoulders, gathering his papers up once again. “I should get going,” he says, resolutely. 

As he turns to leave Iruka says, “Well, maybe you can think about coming on Saturday. I would be glad to see you.” 

“Ah,” Yamato says, his cheeks turning red again. He turns his head halfway toward Iruka, but he doesn’t actually stop moving as he mumbles, “OK,” and then he’s gone.

***

Yamato thought that would be the end of it, but that was a gross underestimation on his part, and he should know better now after knowing Konoha’s number one most unpredictable ninja – but that’s the thing about unpredictable people: they’re always taking you by surprise. 

Still, Yamato never would have dreamed that that innocent, mundane conversation about Iruka’s birthday party would end up having an impact on the rest of his life. 

On Saturday morning he finds himself irritatingly _aware_ of the fact that a party is going on somewhere in the village, and aware of the fact that he has made a conscious choice not to go, and aware that he actually received a personal invitation from the honoured guest of the party to attend and he’s very aware of the fact that in consciously deciding not to go to the party he is rejecting that invitation and – it’s hard to concentrate on work when his mind his busy being aware of so many things at once. 

In the early morning he’s very determined to go about his day the way he would on any other day. By the time he’s sipping his tea at lunch time he’s grudgingly beginning to think that if he ever wants to be able to concentrate again, he may have to appease his conscience by stopping by Iruka’s birthday party for a while. It doesn’t have to be a long visit – he can just go, and pay his respects, and then leave again, and then he should be feeling normal. 

By early afternoon he’s gotten himself all worked up again about the fact that he doesn’t know when the party is, or where it’s taking place, and he should have just been content to not go, he should have stuck to his original plans, but now that he’s made up his mind to go he really feels like he _has_ to go and – he’s kind of a mess.

He’s kind of a mess, and that’s how Naruto finds him when he appears on Yamato’s doorstep in a flurry of chakra and barges through the door without even knocking. He lays eyes on Yamato, drinking what must be about his twentieth cup of tea that day, with paperwork unfinished and scattered all around him.

“I came to get you for Iruka’s party,” Naruto says simply. He’d frozen at the entryway of the kitchen, taking in Yamato’s fidgeting fingers and his hair, which is sticking in all directions from the way he’s been running his hands through it all day. Now he unfreezes, taking the tea cup away from Yamato’s hands and starting to urge him toward the bedroom. “You don’t look ready for a party though,” Naruto says, and Yamato lets himself be pushed across the room. “Why don’t you try to make yourself look nice?” 

It’s a testament to how out of sorts Yamato is feeling that he doesn’t even argue about it. He does, however, find himself staring blankly at the sparse contents of his closet. “What – what constitutes nice?” He asks. Naruto pops up beside him as if he’s just been waiting for the opportunity to give advice. 

“Well,” he says grandly, and starts manhandling all of Yamato’s clothes. There aren’t a lot of them. Everything Yamato owns is black, and it’s all simple – functional – nothing stylish or… nice… about it. For all his initial enthusiasm, Naruto seems stumped. 

“Haven’t you ever heard of colour?” Naruto mumbles, and Yamato can’t help but smile. He doesn’t think he would be able to pull of the garish orange that constitutes Naruto’s signature wardrobe. Eventually, Naruto tosses a handful of clothing at Yamato’s head. “Just wear these. I’m pretty sure every outfit we could make from the clothes in here would look the same anyway.” 

He leaves, and Yamato changes quickly. There’s nothing special about what he’s wearing except that the pants are kind of tight and the shirt doesn’t have a neck to it. He starts feeling uncomfortable immediately. 

“Look what I found!” Naruto crows, and Yamato is fairly certain those words shouldn’t fill him with dread, but they do. Naruto comes barreling into the room, then skids to a stop to look Yamato over appraisingly. Yamato turns red, his hand reaching up to touch his neck self-consciously. 

Naruto rolls his eyes. “What, do you feel too exposed or something?” He asks, breaking into a grin. Yamato turns even redder, because he does, actually. Naruto laughs. “You’re gonna shock everyone at the party, that’s for sure. They’ll all say, ‘Really, Yamato, you should leave something for the imagination!’” 

Yamato frowns at Naruto and, in order to stop the teasing, he steps forward and attempts to take whatever it is Naruto’s holding away from him.

“Hey!” Naruto yells loudly, cradling the object to his chest possessively. “I found it!” 

“It was in my house, so obviously it’s mine,” Yamato argues. 

Naruto steps back and looks at the object consideringly. “Is it really yours? I’ve never seen you wear it.” He holds it up – it’s a hitai-ate, one with a cloth tie instead of a face visor. Once again Yamato feels his face colouring even though he has nothing to be embarrassed about. 

“Yes, it’s mine,” he says. “I just prefer my other one.” 

Naruto looks him up and down, apparently taking Yamato’s hand-picked outfit into consideration, and then he nods. “You’re going to wear it today,” he says, and before Yamato can protest Naruto jumps on him, trying to tie the hitai-ate around Yamato’s head. 

“Stop!” He squawks, almost overbalancing. Naruto does not stop. The result is a very crooked forehead protector that makes it look like he tied it in the dark. Yamato huffs in annoyance, and reaches up to undo the knot. 

“No!” Naruto yells, and he sounds ridiculously bereft, as if he will be genuinely hurt if Yamato refuses to wear the accessory he picked out.

“Relax,” Yamato replies tersely. “I’m just straightening it.” Naruto beams, which is really unnecessary. 

By the time the two of them leave for the party it’s almost three o’clock. “What time does the party start?” Yamato asks, trying to distract himself from the way he feels weirdly nervous, and also from the way he keeps wanting to put his hands around his throat. It just feels weird to have the air touching his neck so freely. He doesn’t understand how people live like this. 

“It starts at three-thirty,” Naruto chirps, hands in his pockets and a bounce in his step.

Yamato almost stops walking in surprise. He slows down, which makes Naruto turn to look at him. “But – that’s not for another forty minutes,” Yamato says slowly, wondering if he’s actually mistaken.

“Yeah, but I wanna help Iruka set up,” Naruto says, and he starts walking again.

“What am _I_ supposed to do?” Yamato asks, anxiety bubbling up in his chest. 

“Um, you’re gonna help too? Or were you planning on being rude?” Naruto smirks at him.

Yamato feels like someone has pulled the rug out from under him, and at the same time he feels this detached sense of wonder at how Naruto can be so oblivious to the discomfort of people around him. 

He doesn’t have to go, he reasons with himself. Or at least, he doesn’t have to go now – he could go kill a half hour… eating at a restaurant? He would have to eat very slowly, but surely it would be less uncomfortable than hanging around in a place he doesn’t feel like he belongs in, with people he doesn’t know very well. 

He thinks about how Naruto suggested it would be rude for him not to help out – but that shouldn’t really matter, Naruto doesn’t seem to have a very firm grasp of the situation anyway, it wouldn’t _actually_ be impolite of him to skip the set-up… And, okay, even if it was impolite, why should it matter to him, he wasn’t even going to come to this party in the first place, so he should… he should really…

Yamato has no idea what he should do, and he spends so much time thinking about his options that he finds himself being tugged along by Naruto’s hand on his, and Naruto is opening a door and they’re entering what is undoubtedly the locale of the party. 

It’s bigger than he expected – it’s not being held at someone’s home, but at a community center of some sort. From what Yamato can see it’s just a big room with tables set up on one side for a buffet of finger foods, and plastic chairs scattered around in groups. Sarutobi Konohamaru and his infamous friends are wobbling around on a step ladder as they fight over who gets to be the one to pin the “Happy Birthday” banner to the wall. Yamato is already feeling overwhelmed. He might faint. 

“Naruto?” Iruka comes from out of nowhere – actually, he comes from out of a door that Yamato hadn’t noticed. He’s holding a tray of food in his hands and he’s smiling. “You came early! I told you you didn’t have to.”

Naruto positively beams at Iruka, taking the platter of food from his hands and heading towards the long tables with utter confidence. “Of course I came to help out! I’m Konoha’s number one party planning ninja!” 

Iruka laughs, and he looks happy and fond as he watches Naruto cross the room, and then his eye catches on what Konohamaru and his friends are doing, and the smile evaporates from his face and the yelling starts and Yamato wants very badly to leave. 

Naruto tugs on his hand again. “Come help me put food out,” he says, and Yamato unthinkingly follows him through the door that Iruka had come out of, which leads to a kitchen. There is a huge amount of food in there. 

“Whoa!” Naruto says, his head jerking from one side of the room to the other as he tries to take in all the dishes and platters. “Look,” he says, pointing to a label on one of them. “They’re all gifts from different stores and restaurants around town,” he says, and he sounds really proud, as if the fact that Iruka is well-liked is his accomplishment, too. 

Yamato has nothing to say. He’s very much awed by the array of food, and he’s impressed, but he feels kind of weird, too. The way he feels is perhaps a little bit jealousy – he’s been thinking about it since he talked to Iruka before, about the way half the village is coming to celebrate the schoolteacher, and now he sees more evidence of how popular and beloved he is, and there’s a small part of him that thinks about how this is something he’s never had, and probably will never have, this excessive display of affection and love – but that’s only a small part of it. The greater part of what he feels is confusion, or maybe curiosity, about what it is that has made Iruka such an important figure in so many peoples’ lives. 

Of course the fact that he’s a teacher is a big part of it, and the younger generation loves him and reveres him as the man who taught them the basics of being a ninja. Yamato never experienced that kind of thing. He was six – sometimes he thinks about it bitterly, sometimes he gets so angry when he remembers – he was six when he became a chuunin. The only teacher, mentor figure in his life that Yamato can say he feels affection for is Kakashi and that’s – complicated. 

But then, half the village is coming to this party. Half the village didn’t attend the academy – or at least, they didn’t when Iruka was the teacher. When Yamato looks at all the packages of food he wonders if any of the store owners that brought them are even ninjas. Maybe some of them have children at the academy, and that would account for one or two of the trays. But there are more like twenty or thirty of them stacked on top of each other throughout the room. 

How can one man have enough time in the day to make an impact on so many people? 

Naruto pushes a tray into Yamato’s hands, and he marches off to put it on the table in the big room practically on autopilot. He’s so wrapped up in thinking about the enigma that is Iruka that he’s actually taken by surprise when the man himself starts talking to him. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to come early, Yamato-san,” Iruka says with a smile. 

“Ah,” Yamato says, feeling like he’s been caught doing something wrong. “Naruto – he didn’t tell me – I didn’t know when – he just came to my house,” he starts to stutter, and then he very fiercely wishes he could stop.

Iruka frowns, obviously concerned. “Don’t feel obliged to help just because Naruto tricked you into it!” 

Yamato laughs, and it sounds weird, and then he wishes he hadn’t laughed at all, and he starts to wonder when he became this person. “No – I don’t mind,” he says, looking away from Iruka’s very soft brown eyes to stare at the food tray in his hands instead. “I wasn’t doing anything anyway.” He realizes that that makes him sound like a loser. “I mean, I guess you were right – I would rather be at a party than doing work on the weekend.” 

That’s kind of a lie. Yamato is a bad and awkward person. 

When Yamato glances up Iruka is smiling, big and bright, and it makes Yamato feel at ease, and it suddenly seems obvious that the whole village adores this man, because he’s – Yamato has to fight back a smile of his own as he thinks ‘adorable.’ It’s not quite the right word, but – well. It is _a_ word. And it’s not actually wrong, either.

“I’m glad,” Iruka says, and then he adds, “I’m glad you’re here.” 

Yamato finds himself about to say something stupid like ‘I’m glad I’m here too,’ but luckily Naruto distracts him before he embarrasses himself. 

Naruto has emerged from the kitchen with three platters stacked on top of each other in his arms. “If you drop one of those I’m going to be angry,” Iruka says placidly, folding his arms against his chest. 

“I’m not gonna drop them,” Naruto says, rolling his eyes. “I’m trying to speed things up. People are gonna start arriving soon, you know!”

Iruka looks a little startled at that, glances at the clock hanging on the wall over the kitchen door. Yamato continues on his way toward the table, setting down his first platter as Naruto does the same with his second, third, and fourth. 

“I’m winning, you know,” Naruto mutters to him slyly, and the hell of it is that Yamato _does_ know. He glances up and sees that Iruka is busy yelling at the children again, though lord knows what trouble they could be getting into this time. Yamato smiles at Naruto and gives him the creepy eyes. 

“You’re going to regret challenging me,” he says back, under his breath. He dashes off in a puff of chakra, moving so fast he becomes invisible to the eye. 

“Not fair!” Naruto yells after him, but Yamato only laughs. 

Naruto doesn’t even see him again until they’re down to the last platter in the kitchen. The tables out in the main room are so full of food that it’s going to be difficult to find room for this one, but both Naruto and Yamato are willing to rise to the challenge. They’re facing off against each other over the table.

“This is the last one,” Yamato says. They’re both well aware of the fact. 

“Let me get it,” Naruto says, pouting. Yamato makes a face at him.

“Even if you do take this one, you won’t win. You’re six behind me.”

Naruto pouts even more. “It’s not a competition,” he whines. Yamato eyes widen in outrage.

“You’re just saying that because you lost!” He says, pointing his finger accusingly. Naruto tries to take advantage of that moment and grab the tray, but Yamato his faster. They end up both getting a good hold of it, but they can’t play tug-of-war with it without risking the food flying everywhere. “If it’s not a competition then why does it matter so much that you take this one out?” Yamato asks, wise to Naruto’s games.

Naruto’s about to answer when the tray is taken from both of them. Iruka isn’t even trying to hide his amusement as he smiles at both of them.

“I’ll take it, and I’ll be the winner,” he says, smug, and they both relinquish their holds forlornly. 

“Somehow he always wins,” Naruto confides to Yamato as they watch him walk across the room. Yamato is seized with affection for Naruto and expresses it the only way he can think of – he puts his hands in the boy’s hair and messes it up as best he can. 

“Hey, stop!” Naruto shouts, sounding absolutely scandalized. He looks up at Yamato with wide, betrayed eyes. “Just because _you_ don’t care if you look good doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t,” he says, scraping his fingers through his yellow hair and trying to get it back under control. 

“Hey!” Yamato protests, though when he thinks back to the scene in the closet he can’t help but think that Naruto probably has a point. He’s about to argue about it anyway when someone else cuts in for him.

“I think he looks _lovely_ ,” says a purring voice, right at Yamato’s ear, and Yamato doesn’t even hesitate, he elbows the speaker directly in the solar plexus. Kakashi, apparently taken by surprise, bends over double, sputtering. 

Yamato’s hands fly to his mouth. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry Senpai,” he says, mortified. Naruto is laughing. Yamato can feel his imminent death approaching. 

“Kakashi-san,” Iruka says, coming over. The smile on his face is huge and a little bit wicked. “I don’t know what you did, but I’m pretty sure you deserved that.” 

Kakashi straightens up, cradling his chest with one hand. “I didn’t _deserve_ that, Iruka. In fact, I was being very nice. I was just about to comment on how refreshing it is to see Tenzo dressed up for this occasion.” Kakashi pauses for a moment. “Or is it dressed down?” 

Iruka looks at Yamato curiously, head tipped to one side. Yamato feels certain that Iruka hadn’t realized there was anything out of the ordinary about Yamato’s clothing and that he’s now trying to figure out what constitutes dressed up/down. 

“It’s not –” Yamato stops, feeling Kakashi’s gaze on him. “Naruto picked out my clothes for me,” he says, feeling very lame. 

Kakashi turns his interested gaze on Naruto instead. “My, Naruto,” he says, and Naruto pre-emptively scrunches up his face into a scowl, knowing from the tone that he’s not going to like whatever follows. “I would never have imagined that you’d want your captain in such tight pants.”

Naruto starts to howl almost immediately, calling Kakashi a pervert. Yamato’s face turns deeply red and he fights off the ridiculous urge to cover his crotch with his hands. They’re not _that_ bad. 

Yamato accidentally makes eye contact with Iruka, who looks amused and a little baffled. He abruptly changes the subject.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me Tenzo, anyway,” he says, giving Kakashi a significant look. Kakashi shrugs his shoulders and is about to reply when Naruto cuts in.

“What’s Tenzo, anyway? Is that your family name or something?”

Yamato’s mouth pinches slightly. “No, it’s just an old codename.” He’s not sure if that’s supposed to be confidential information or not anymore. It was a long time ago, and he can’t see any way it could be used against him – but he’s been taught pretty thoroughly throughout his life to keep most things private.

“So Yamato’s your real name?” Naruto asks. He seems to have completely forgotten Kakashi’s teasing from earlier.

Yamato winces a little. “Not – not really?” He says, but it comes out as a question. 

Naruto frowns at him. “So what’s your real name then?”

“I don’t have one,” Yamato replies with a helpless shrug. He suddenly remembers that he has an audience and looks up from Naruto’s puzzled face to see Kakashi, whose expression is carefully blank, and Iruka, who’s frowning at Naruto. 

“You should be more sensitive about the questions you ask, Naruto,” Iruka scolds. Naruto gives him a look of shocked innocence. 

“But how can a person not have a name? Didn’t your parents give you one?” Iruka makes an exasperated noise and turns his gaze to Yamato. Yamato gets the feeling that he’s being encouraged to respond harshly in some way.

“I don’t know what my parents named me,” he starts. Iruka twitches an eyebrow at him significantly, reminding him that this is a prime example to teach Naruto a lesson. Yamato shoots him a slightly exasperated look of his own, which makes Iruka relent a little, the corners of his lips dipping downwards sympathetically. 

That’s – not exactly what Yamato was going for. He hates it when people feel bad for him. “I don’t remember what my parents named me because I don’t have any memories from before Orochimaru kidnapped me to perform experiments on me,” he concludes flippantly. Naruto winces, and Yamato feels he’s delivered that lesson quite efficiently. He looks back up to share that victory but he sees that Kakashi is still perfectly blank-faced and Iruka looks sort of shocked. 

He realizes, a little belatedly, that he’s actually just given even more of a reason to be pitied. 

An awkward silence descends on them. 

“I’m going to go eat,” he mumbles, and crosses the room to the food tables. 

He’s just reached them when the first group of people arrive for the party. Team Kurenai and Team Asuma have apparently all come together and the hall immediately fills up with noise. Within seconds Yamato has been joined at the tables by Chouji, who he doesn’t know very well. He smiles politely, but Chouji is more interested in sampling something from each of the trays than making small talk. 

The rest of the party goes by in a similar fashion: Yamato comes to realize that even the small portion of the village he’s familiar with make up nothing more than a handful of acquaintances. He’s not sure he has anyone he can consider a friend when he thinks hard about it, which is sort of depressing. 

He could count Naruto, but it feels weird because he’s Naruto’s superior. He could also count Kakashi, but that feels weird because Kakashi is _his_ superior. 

He stands near the food throughout the entire party, watching other people have conversations and occasionally getting really self-conscious and wishing that he had stayed home and done work instead.

He remembers after maybe a half hour that he had resolved to only stay at the party for a few minutes, and he’s already wished Iruka a happy birthday and paid his respects, so there would no problem with him leaving, surely – it just suddenly feels very conspicuous to cross the room and leave. He feels rooted to the spot. 

That feeling of being too self-conscious to leave turns into a resolve to stay. He starts watching Iruka as he interacts with all of the other party guests in order to distract himself from his hyper-awareness of his own existence. 

He remembers his earlier questions about how Iruka has become so significant to so many people as he watches the man chat with party guests both very young and very old. Yamato doesn’t recognize a lot of them. Iruka smiles and laughs with every single one. Yamato thinks that it must be exhausting, but Iruka looks like he’s having a genuinely good time. 

“Maa,” says a voice, too close to his ear, but Yamato doesn’t let it startle him this time. He waves a hand in Kakashi’s face to shoo him. “You’ve only got eyes for one man today, huh?” 

Yamato can hear the smirk in Kakashi’s voice even if he can’t see it under his mask. He takes a step away because Kakashi won’t. “I’m wondering how he managed to convince me to come to a party where I don’t know anyone,” Yamato mutters. His voice comes out sounding bitter even though he doesn’t feel angry; he’s more…intrigued, really. Iruka has magical powers.

The bitter tone is probably a side effect of being within ten feet of Kakashi.

“You know plenty of the young people,” Kakashi says, smiling at Yamato with his one eye. “You’ve led most of them on more than one mission. You haven’t forgotten their names, have you?”

Yamato rolls his eyes. “Leading a team on a mission and…mingling with teenagers at a birthday party are very different situations. I’m comfortable with one, not the other.”

“Oh, Tenzo, one day you’ll learn to be a good shinobi,” Kakashi says, somehow beaming at Yamato even though he’s not showing any teeth. “Until then, you’ll have to make do with talking about boybands and complaining about your teacher.”

Yamato tries to elbow Kakashi in the stomach but the move is neatly dodged. “Did I not just tell you to stop call me Tenzo?”

“Maa,” Kakashi says, in that annoying ambiguous way. It could mean yes, it could mean no, it could mean go fuck yourself. It probably means the third one. “Yes, I seem to remember you displaying those excellent teen-talking skills of yours.” Kakashi grins; he seems very proud of that jab. 

“It was Iruka’s idea,” Yamato grumbles, but Kakashi raises a disbelieving eyebrow at him. “Well, he didn’t say it out loud, or anything, but he was giving me a look.” 

“He was giving you a look that said, ‘Please, make things awkward by blurting out your tragic backstory?’” Kakashi’s voice was almost sing-song. 

“You know, I’m not sure what it is about you, but whenever I’m around you my desire to commit random acts of violence really peaks.” 

“I guess that’s what makes us work so well together in the field,” Kakashi remarks philosophically. 

Silence settles between them for a few moments, then Kakashi says, “Well, I guess I’ll be leaving.”

“Oh, good!” Yamato says, relief evident in his voice. Kakashi gives him a look. “I mean, I should be leaving too. I have work to do. We can leave together.” Kakashi doesn’t stop giving him that look. 

Yamato elects to ignore him and makes for the door with Kakashi in tow. They reach the entryway before they’re interrupted. 

“Oh, are you two leaving already?” Yamato looks up and for a moment is seized with guilt; he feels like he’s been caught red-handed.

“Well, you know how it is. A shinobi’s work is never over,” Kakashi replies casually. He frowns a little at the end of the sentence though, and Yamato wonders if all three of them have suddenly started to contemplate the inevitability of death or if it’s just him. Then Yamato wonders if he’s weird.

“Well, I’m glad you could both come,” Iruka says, smiling. “I hope you had a good time.”

Iruka has a really nice smile. It’s very bright and genuine. Yamato can’t stop himself from smiling back, even though he’s pretty sure his own smile is just tired-looking. And possibly goofy. He’s definitely weird. 

“I’m glad I could come too,” Yamato says. He feels a little stupid afterward. He and Iruka look at each other and neither of them say anything and the moment feels like it’s lasting too long. Yamato feels a little bit panicked. He blurts out, “My birthday’s in August. Maybe you can come to my party, too.”

Iruka smiles even wider, so wide that his eyes close. Yamato feels it like a physical blow. His face is turning completely red. He doesn’t even celebrate his birthday. He doesn’t have parties. He doesn’t have any friends to invite to a party. He has made a terrible mistake. It’s Iruka’s fault. It’s all because of Iruka’s silly beautiful smile and his weird magically loveable personality.

“Well, I hope you can both come to my birthday party in September, too,” Kakashi butts in. Yamato had forgotten he was there. He gets the distinct feeling that he’s being made fun of. 

Iruka opens his eyes to give Kakashi a suspicious look. “I’m not sure I want to be anywhere near a party that you organized,” he says. Yamato feels a little envious of the playfulness of the words.

“Oh, I’m not going to organize it,” Kakashi says breezily. “That’s what underlings are for.” He puts a hand on Yamato’s head patronizingly. 

For the third time that day Yamato goes to elbow Kakashi in the abdomen. Kakashi dances away easily. “Bye bye,” Kakashi throws over his shoulder as he continues to dance all the way out the door. He disappears in a puff of smoke. 

“Ah, I’ll be going too,” Yamato says, feeling hopelessly awkward. 

“Goodbye then,” Iruka replies. He has an endless supply of smiles. Yamato is struggling to return them all. 

“Bye,” Yamato says, but it takes him almost a full minute before he realizes that he should actually leave. 

He is possibly the most embarrassing person on Earth. 

***

Honestly, Yamato was half expecting that he wouldn’t see Iruka again until August. It doesn’t work out that way though. He’s not sure if Iruka is showing up at the same place at the same time more often lately or if he’s just noticing it more of the time, but he finds himself constantly passing Iruka in the Hokage Tower, or in the mission room, or at Ichiraku. 

Most of the time they just say hi or smile politely, but sometimes Yamato finds himself drawn into conversation. He learns that Iruka is working with children even though the Academy is on summer vacation, that the chuunin teacher runs a summer camp for children whose shinobi parents are away on missions. Yamato’s starting to think that the man is a saint. 

He also begins to wonder if maybe sainthood is contagious, because he can’t really think of any other logical explanation for the conversation they fall into one day. 

“One of my assistants got called away on a long term mission, so everything’s really hectic,” Iruka tells him with a grimace. The two of them have crossed paths in the dim summer twilight outside one of the few stores in town that’s still open. Iruka’s arms are full of glue and construction paper and pompom balls. 

“Oh,” Yamato says, hoping his voice conveys the correct amount of sympathy. Or maybe it should be empathy? He starts to worry about it. He has developed a habit of worrying around Iruka, which somehow always ends up morphing into a habit of saying things he’ll regret later. Case in point: “Do you need any help?” 

Iruka looks up from where he was re-arranging his supplies, surprise in his expression. “Are you offering?” He asks, disbelieving. Yamato smiles sheepishly. 

“I don’t have a lot of experience with young kids. I mostly work with genin and chuunin. But I… haven’t been busy lately. So maybe there’s something I can do for you.” It’s not like he can back out now that he’s offered, even though at least seventy percent of his brain is panicking. 

A smile spreads across Iruka’s face.


End file.
